Standard televisions and projection display systems display two dimensional images. Images of three-dimensional objects and scenes are flattened to two-dimensions when the images are recorded and the resulting two-dimensional images are displayed without regaining any of the three-dimensional information. This is unfortunate since three-dimensional images may convey a large amount of information and three-dimensional images and video may enhance the viewers' enjoyment.
It may be possible to recreate three-dimensional images from two two-dimensional images with each two-dimensional image being a recording of a three-dimensional scene taken with slightly different perspectives. When the two two-dimensional images are displayed, each two-dimensional image being viewed solely by one of a viewer's two eyes, the three-dimensional scene is recreated by the viewer's optic system. In order to properly recreate the three-dimensional scene, each of the viewer's two eyes should see only one of the two two-dimensional images.
An inexpensive and widely used technique of recreating three-dimensional images involves displaying a red monochrome image (or video) and a blue monochrome image (or video), with the red monochrome image and the blue monochrome image providing different perspectives of the same scene, and using an eyeglass with a red filter and a blue filter. The eye behind the red filter will only see the blue monochrome image and the eye behind the blue filter will only see the red monochrome image.
Another inexpensive and widely used technique for recreating three-dimensional images involves displaying a first image using polarized light of a first polarity and a second image using polarized light of a second polarity, wherein the first polarity and the second polarity being orthogonal. A viewer would use eyeglasses with polarized lenses, with a first lens with the first polarity and a second lens with the second polarity. The first lens would then block the second image, permitting a first eye to visualize only the first image, and the second lens would block the first image, permitting a second eye to visualize only the second image.